Renderings courtesy of SoDo Atlanta LLC
Robotic patrol dogs, a German investor collapse, and a Smorgasburg? The rebirth of South Downtown Atlanta resembles a Hollywood script.
While the typical outdoor lifestyle destination center being built these days appears to resemble every other mixed-use development of its kind, two innovative entrepreneurs in South Atlanta are working hard to change that.
Breaking the cookie-cutter mold for mixed-use developments is what SoDo Atlanta is all about. The developers just have to do this across 10 city blocks and about 1 million sq. ft. of mostly under-utilized and historic space.
You think that’s daunting? Wait until you read the whole story.
Located between Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Georgia State Capitol and Atlanta City Hall in what is known as South Downtown Atlanta, this historic 16-acre district is slowly springing back to life after decades of inactivity and neglect thanks to the investment of David Cummings and Jon Birdsong. They call their ambitious project SoDo Atlanta, and piece by piece, they are assembling a puzzle of 57 buildings to turn a formerly dilapidated part of Georgia’s capital city into a thriving hub of commerce.
If all goes as planned, they say, the 3 million visitors who come to Atlanta for the FIFA World Cup next year will see something unlike anything they’ve witnessed before in this metro area of 6.4 million people.
What they want those visitors to experience, more than anything, is the unique authenticity of this master-planned development and not just another knockoff of Avalon and other mega-town-center developments in the suburbs.
CEO and UGA grad Jon Birdsong affectionately calls this place “Atlanta’s founding neighborhood.” Built up in the late 1800s and early 1900s, this area was known as Hotel Row in the 1930s and became a favorite hangout for the movers and shakers of the day. Need some carbonated water or a soda machine for the road? Just stop by in your horse and buggy and they’ll load it up for you. Running low on cash? Stop by the old Citizens & Southern Bank while you’re in town and make a withdrawal.
And then there’s the White Hall Historic District, which has three designated national historic landmarks. Like many other once-bustling enclaves of Hotlanta, this one cooled off considerably and saw most of its buildings remain vacant and dormant for 30 to 50 years.
Visitors Flock to Corn Dog Heaven
“Our primary goal is adaptive re-use,” Birdsong told a crowd of more than 200 people at a presentation he gave on Nov. 6 in Duluth, Georgia, at the annual Metro Atlanta Redevelopment Summit hosted by Partnership Gwinnett. “We are going to call this place Startup City: Atlanta’s Original Neighborhood for Entrepreneurs and Founders.”
He and project founder David Cummings aren’t even waiting around for new construction to take place. Instead, they’re rolling up their sleeves and taking advantage of what’s already there on Mitchell Street. “We have six acres of street-level parking,” Birdsong says. “Smorgasburg just opened. It’s a collection of 40 to 50 food vendors in an open-air parking lot. We are all about entrepreneurs, and that includes the chefs who create innovative food trucks. Come by any weekend, and we are packed. What these food innovators are creating is way better than anything you’ll find at a food hall.”
Don’t believe him? Try everything from Astros Corn Dogs to Nana’s Chicken-N-Waffles at this gastronomic extravaganza.
That is just part of what Birdsong has dubbed “Project L.” Located near MBS Stadium and the rapidly evolving Centennial Yards (a $5 billion redevelopment of the area formerly known as The Gulch), SoDo is the multi-block area anchored by the intersection of Broad Street and Mitchell Street, the center of Atlanta’s original downtown.
Job one, says Birdsong, is public safety. “Broad Street had the most homicides in Atlanta in 2010,” he says. “That’s why we’ve made safety our No. 1 priority, and to do that you need residents. At 85 Peachtree, we have created 26 new apartment units. The cost to do this project was $28 million.”
Their inspiration? That’s the easy part. Atlanta Tech Village, one of the most successful startup clusters ever created in the world. Already the fourth largest tech hub in the country, it was the brainchild of Cummings and Birdsong and their firm known as Atlanta Ventures. They want to replicate that success in SoDo.
“We are creating a new Atlanta Tech Village and a new park. All of this is under construction right now,” says Birdsong. “This is about as mixed-use as you can get. It will have a Glide Pizza and a Crates record store. It is all about recruiting the best tenants and making this a safe place. AdPipe just moved its headquarters here. They have 40 employees now and will grow to 80 to 100 people by the end of 2026.”
Despite these early wins, Birdsong admits that the road ahead is bumpy. “We have a lot of headwinds,” he says rather matter-of-factly. “Crime is one of them. Which is really what I call the challenge of the mentally unwell. When MARTA [Atlanta’s metro rail system] severed the walkability of our downtown in 1980, it created this problem. Our downtown area is so massive and undefined. We are doing everything possible to change that.”
How SoDo is Taking a Bite Out of Crime
In addition to hiring full-time security personnel, SoDo contracted with a firm known as Undaunted to have robotic dogs patrol the neighborhood and make sure that the area is monitored 24/7. “Atlanta Police now respond to this area in under 90 seconds. That was not happening before,” notes Birdsong. “Our next big thing is that we are challenging Atlanta’s addiction to cars; and we want this to be an affordable lifestyle. We have protected bike lanes. We love the urban fabric and the walkability of SoDo. People know Downtown Atlanta. Well, SoDo is our downtown.”
Another piece to the puzzle is the $230 million makeover taking place at the long-troubled Five Points MARTA Station. “That is something we have needed for a very long time,” Birdsong adds. “It is finally happening.”
Skanska USA is undertaking the revamp of this long-crime-riddled eyesore and giving it new life that includes a mass timber canopy structure. They call it a “surgical deconstruction.” That will be phase one of a new 144,400-sq.-ft. transit hub that Skanska envisions as a “vibrant city center.”
What remains to be seen is whether this new attempt to revitalize South Downtown Atlanta will have staying power. Others have tried and failed. A group of German investors poured over $150 million into property acquisition in the neighborhood in the mid to late 2010s. Last year, Cummings took one tour of SoDo and made an offer to buy the whole wad of buildings in one fell and much cheaper swoop. At the MARS event in Duluth, Birdsong referred to the purchase price as an approximate 40% discount.
If Cummings and Birdsong come even close to approaching their success with Atlanta Tech Village — the Buckhead venture that has produced more than 300 startups and 1,200 residents, raised over $3 billion in capital and produced over $14.5 billion in enterprise value since its founding in 2012 — they will likely go down in history as the duo that brought South Downtown Atlanta back from the dead.
Just about any dog, robotic or not, would wag its tail at that.
Renderings supplied by SoDo Atlanta LLC show what the founders envision this 10-block area to become one day.
Renderings courtesy of SoDo Atlanta LLC
South Downtown Atlanta is anchored around the L created by the intersection of Broad Street and Mitchell Street between MBS Stadium and City Hall.
“Our primary goal is adaptive re-use. We are going to call this place Startup City: Atlanta’s Original Neighborhood for Entrepreneurs and Founders.”
– Jon Birdsong, CEO, SoDo Atlanta LLC
